


Incipient

by chronicAngel



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-03-23 14:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13789869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: incipienta. in an initial stage; beginning to happen or develop





	1. Denial

There's an explosion on 42nd street.

The sound of a bomb going off is so jarring that he almost doesn't make it out of the manor, only snapping out of his introspection when Alfred checks on him in the cave, likely noticing that he hasn't already left. There are still goosebumps on his arms underneath the suit when he pulls up to the building, a bank that just finished construction two weeks ago. Jason was excited to make an account there for his upcoming sixteenth birthday, at which point Gotham's citizens are allowed to manage their own finances.

Jason is never going to get to make an account there.

It's not as subtle as she usually is, but Bruce knows who it is nonetheless. It helps that he sees her silhouette on the roof to the building next door, wearing a sleek black ensemble and surrounded by giant chunks of debris. Somehow, despite his lagging, the police still haven't arrived, and that leaves just the three of them.

His heart stutters for a moment.

 _Two of us_ , he mentally corrects, wearing a grimace as he climbs out of the car.

It's the same game of cat and mouse that it's always been.

He reaches the flat surface of the roof in two minutes tops, the wind rushing in his ears accompanying the whirring of the spool from his grappling hook as it reels back into the gun. He looks over his shoulder instinctively to check that Jason's landed on his feet when he reaches his destination, and then feels his heart sink when the boy isn't there. When he remembers that he's never going to be there again. By the time he's looked in front of him again, Selina has already taken off, and his muscles burn as he takes off sprinting after her even if it feels like he's only drifting in her direction. Everything has felt so small to him since Jason died, almost a month of feeling only anger or total numbness to the world around him.

 _A month_. It's a rattling statistic, shaking him down to his very bones every time he thinks about the little boy in the pictures scattered about the manor. He supposes Jason was hardly a little boy, already fourteen when Bruce found him, but when he looks at the few pictures he'd gotten of him before the incident in Lebanon all he sees is a little boy trying too hard to be an adult.

He feels the sting of a whip against his skin and looks down to see thick leather wrapped around his waist, stopping him from falling right off the edge of a building. "Careful, Bat. Wouldn't want you to go and get yourself killed because you're lost in that big head of yours." It's an innocent enough comment, but her tone is filled with implication.

When he doesn't say anything, she straightens, leaning away from him, whip still trapping his arms against his sides.

"I haven't seen you alone in a while," she says, and this time there's no implication about it.

He glares at her through the cowl. They both know that he can get out of the whip, simply wrapped twice around his body and held by the traction of leather against Kevlar, but he makes no move to escape the hold just yet. "Get used to it," he replies lowly, clenching his jaw. She stands in front of him with her hands on her hips, leather clinging to her curves in a way he might have taken particular notice of months ago. Now, he wonders how long he'll give her before untangling himself.

"I heard about the baby bird." She sounds strangely serious, sitting across from him with her legs crisscrossed as though she has nothing better to be doing when she has just stolen thousands of dollars and blown up a new bank. The evidence hangs at her side scandalously, an overstuffed bag that he recognizes from her very first heist; the very first time he busted her. He's wondered in the past if it holds some sentiment for her.

"I don't want to," he says, moving within his restraints to free himself. It'll take a minute at most. He remembers two months ago when Jason threw a tantrum because he'd let Selina slip away after they'd chased her for nearly half an hour. With Jason in mind, he will arrest her.

The whip has already slackened around his arms, down to one loop around his torso, when she grabs it and pulls, removing it from him completely. "Can we just talk for once? Like two normal people instead of people who run around at night with masks on, stopping and committing crimes?" He watches her for a second, squints in suspicion and tries to figure out her angle. His eyes are narrowed to thin white slits and he thinks the only way to describe the look she's giving him is desperate. "Please?" He reaches out for one of her wrists and pulls it behind her back.

"Don't be ridiculous," she huffs as though this is simply a formality and he will let her go any moment. He doesn't. He thinks of Jason's smiling face and then thinks of the crime in Gotham City, the filth that floated to the top of the gutter and killed an innocent child and it's _all Bruce's fault_. He thinks of Jason angrily storming through the cave and nearly blowing the caverns up in his rage because Bruce let this very woman go after yet another game of cat and mouse months ago. The last thing Jason had probably ever thought when it came to Catwoman. The metal cuffs snap into place against her thin wrists and he pulls her harder than he needs to toward the lip of the roof, reaching for his grappling gun. "This isn't normally how I end the night in handcuffs with you." She laughs, voice breathy but quivering. He thinks only a couple of months ago he might have spared a chuckle at the joke. Now he just scowls, hauling her against his body and latching the hook to the roof across an alley to swing them both to the ground.

By the time he gets back to the bank, the police are finally there. Gordon has a squad of men by the entrance but seems to have realized quickly where the two of them will be. The commissioner gives him a knowing look as he drags Selina toward the squad of cars that he chooses to ignore, staring pointedly at the dirty, damp concrete of Gotham's streets underneath his heavy feet. "That was fast," Jim jokes, but there's concern laced in the tone.

Bruce knows he has only been getting more brutal since Jason's death and that soon he will pass the level at which law enforcement will have to step in (if he couldn't figure it out on his own, Alfred and Barbara and even Jim have spent more than enough time reminding him). He doesn't plan to pull it back but instead to stay right where he is, skirting the edge of danger. "Arrest her before I do something worse," he says lowly instead of playing along.

"I'm interested in the something worse," she says with a wink. Bruce and Jim both glare at her and she seems to shrink a bit, sheepish smile passing over her features. "You know, even Jimmy here can play with the bad guys every once in a while, Bat." Though there's no real shift in her inflection, Bruce knows the meaning is different. While Jim has seemed to strike up a sort of camaraderie with some of Gotham's criminals with less severe offenses under their belts, he would never do something as disgusting as what Bruce has done with Selina. He almost makes a face at himself.

"I'd normally have you on your back by this point in the night," she adds, winking again, and he almost groans. He hasn't blushed since he was a teenager, but he thinks that if he were the type, his cheeks might be warm now.

A few things happen after that.

Jim reaches for the cuffs around her wrist at the same time that she seems to escape them, reaching behind her for the hands grasping her wrists and digging her nails into the flesh for a better grip while she flips him. Bruce doesn't have time to react and realizes not for the first time that his reflexes have slowed since Jason... since Jason.

"See?" She calls over her shoulder while she sprints away, and Bruce Wayne would bury his face in his hands with a groan of dismay. Batman simply forces himself to stand and tries to follow her again, watching as she dodges bullets from the police officers that surround them. The sound of bullets and shouts are like a white noise though, as he realizes that once more he's going to lose her.

Once more he's letting her get away.

 _I'm sorry, Jason_.


	2. Anger

Normally, when she commits a crime this big, one that results in property damage and thousands of dollars in spoils, she'll lay low for a few weeks. He'll deal with the Penguin or the Riddler or even some small, fresh-out-of-the-misdemeanor-womb thug for the next few weeks or months until she's run out of funds to dip into, conservatively-minded when it comes to her sprees; for a diagnosed kleptomaniac.

This time, he runs into her two nights later as the civil Bruce Wayne at an auction for a collection of rare jewels. He doesn't actually want to purchase them, but he's funding the event and he thought he might run into some trouble while he was here either way.

He changes into the suit in the third stall of the bathroom, which is all but invisible to the single security camera tucked into the corner. In other cities, he imagines it's considered strange or even immoral to have security cameras in bathrooms. In Gotham City, it's a necessary safety precaution against shoplifters and shooters alike, although he's sure all of the seriously hardened criminals know of all the hidden corners just as well as he does. In point of fact, he wouldn't be surprised if the women's restroom was used as a similar sort of hideout for Selina in herself, as the prospect of her sneaking in while completely done up in leather is ridiculous.

He takes no time at all to find her once he's properly dressed (or as properly dressed as one can be when they fight crime dressed as a bat), lingering near the edges of the stage where the gems are on display. He can't help but take notice of the fact that her eyes don't even rest on any of the pieces, but rather drift around the room as though looking for something else. They seem to find him after a minute, piercing green eyes settling on his cowl as it is apparently too dark in the shadows of the corner he's chosen to stand in to exactly pinpoint his eyes.

She slinks over to him without grabbing anything from the set first, resting a hand on his arm as she leans close, "Hello, Bat. You sure got here quickly. No one's even called the police yet." Despite her words, there isn't an ounce of surprise in her voice.

"Cat," he acknowledges gruffly, narrowing his eyes at her in suspicion. If she notices, she doesn't say anything about it, simply leaning back away from him on her heels and giving him an expectant look like he has something that she wants and is waiting for him to offer it up. Even if he had the faintest idea what it was, he wouldn't give it to her, instead leveling her with a mistrustful look. "Why are you here?"

"We both know why I'm here," she says. There's a challenge in her inflection, tone just a bit sharper than it usually would be leaving him wondering if he's somehow offended her. He reprimands himself mentally, reminding himself that he shouldn't _care_. She's a _criminal_. Still, something about the way she says it makes him think that she isn't here for the reason he originally suspected.

He must bore her, as she turns abruptly and leaves him there, still reeling and trying to process what it is she really wants from him. He only snaps back into reality when he hears people screaming and he imagines it is due to the renowned criminal now standing on the stage in front of them, grabbing an opulent chrysoberyl from one of the displays too easily. She stuffs it in the dull bag at her side and grabs two more of the gems, a sapphire and an emerald, before she takes off, throwing him a mischievous grin over her shoulder which lets him know that this is only bait being laid out for him. Still, he can't let her get away with it simply because she is trying to trap him.

They maneuver around each other like they are dancing, a familiar routine that still has blood rushing in his ears, but something about it is different. He only ever attacks her on principle, having memorized the way she fights years ago and countering it in a way that will exhaust her, defensive in as explicit a manner as he can be without offending her strange ideals. He doesn't even go easy on Harley or Ivy, a special treatment reserved only for the woman who dodges his strikes with grace in front of him now. It's been like this practically since the beginning. He aims a blow at her shoulder, she ducks underneath it, she tries to scratch across his chest, he jumps back before it catches. They go back and forth, neither landing a hit, until they end up in a heap on the floor anyway or else one of them gets exhausted and the other gets away.

She dodges right and his jab connects with her jaw. She always dodges left, a pattern he picked up on in their first encounter in August of '97, and yet he's always purposely thrown his punches to the right with the knowledge that they'd miss. He knows how intelligent she is and is sure that she's picked up on it, too, which leaves him shocked at this complete twist of the norm. He is sure his eyes must be just as wide as hers are, shocked blue hidden behind a cowl meeting bright, _bright_ green, tears already springing to her eyes at the pain even if she isn't exactly crying. He surges forward without thinking, gripping her arms with bruising force. She hisses through her teeth but does not let any other sign of pain show. "Why are you doing this?"

“You’re _unhinged_ , Bruce.” Her face is a picture of genuine concern. He lets go of her arms to stumble back a step, watching her with narrowed eyes again when he hears his name from her lips. It's not something he's used to.

"You know?" He says, not seeing the point in denying it when he doesn't have anyone to protect anymore.

"I suspected," she offers, glancing to the side, sheepish. "I didn't know until Rob... until Jason." Hearing her address it makes something flare in him and he rips his eyes away from her to glare at the ground instead.

"Why didn't you say anything?" He mutters bitterly, voice grave, and he hears gravel under her feet shift and crunch as she takes a step closer to him. She knew the whole time and something tells him that if none of this had happened, she never would have said anything about it. The beginnings of cold anger stir in his gut. "You should have said something, Selina."

When he looks up again, she's half-reaching a hand out to him as though she was going to rest a hand on his shoulder but hesitated and changed her mind halfway through the action. It drops to her side when her worried gaze meets his glower. "I should have," she agrees.

He had forgotten how stunning she was. She takes her mask off to reveal tussled black hair that spills down to her shoulders, forehead dampened with sweat. He imagines that leather can't be particularly good for running in, even if it gives whoever is chasing her (usually him) an eyeful, already hot and uncomfortable when one is forced to stand still in the material. There's something about her sharp green eyes that looks different when the rest of her face is revealed with them, something even more expressive and dangerous. "Talk to me. Please," she pleads, her voice nearly a whisper.

He takes off his own, every line of his face hard. "What right do you have to ask that of me when all you do is run away from your problems?"

"You're not a problem," she says, seeing through him.

He doesn't answer.

His cape whooshes dramatically behind him when he turns away from her, his head hanging in anger and grief some nasty sort of disappointment. Neither of them says anything else before he leaves her there, springing to the next nearby rooftop.


	3. Bargaining

"Where are you hiding it?"

She jumps at his voice and drops the cup that she was holding, a cheap, yellow plastic thing that rolls along its rim on the floor and spills its contents which he suspects from the smell is a mix of rum and diet coke. She wears a too-big t-shirt that falls down to her thighs, peaking up to reveal plain black underwear that he's seen a thousand times before when she sighs and bends over to pick up the cup. "Thanks, _hero_ ," she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. When she straightens, he notices that her eyes are red-rimmed. "What are you doing in my apartment at two in the morning?"

"It's only two in the morning?" He says before he can catch himself, and then his mouth firms into a straight line before he stumbles over himself trying to backpedal. She snickers into her palm.

He stands awkwardly in her living room for a minute, the curtains that normally conceal the window above her fire escape fluttering with the night breeze behind him. She drops the yellow cup into the sink with a splash of soapy and slightly brown water and then moves to stand across from him with her arms crossed above her chest. She's more than half a foot shorter than him, but glares defiantly as though she is once again waiting for something. He half-suspects it's an apology.

"I'm--" He starts, but is cut off when she says, "It's not here. None if it. You'll have to look somewhere else." He blinks down at her and wonders if he's heard her right, her admission to its location. Well, it's hardly an admission at all, really, but he supposes it tells him where it's _not_ and that's more than he really expected from her. In actuality, he's not sure why he's here, in her apartment.

"Oh." He thinks it makes him sound rather dumb, and is sure the thought has been confirmed when she laughs again into her hands as though she might be able to catch the sound and stop him from hearing it as it comes out.

He doesn't understand why. He thinks her laugh is beautiful. She could light up a roof in Gotham at midnight by herself with just a chuckle, could fill the whole city with overwhelming brightness with a laughing fit, but she always seems like she's trying to hide it from him. He'd almost call it cruel. He shouldn't expect anything else; she's a criminal after all. He chooses then to focus on the task at hand instead. "I think I should stay and look anyway," he tries, and he thinks they both know that he's only using it as an excuse not to leave. She's gracious enough not to mention it, socks moving against carpet until she's multiple feet out of his way, standing by a TV that sits on the floor across from a futon that could have come from an alley for how torn up it looks.

The longer he spends in her apartment, the more he realizes how completely different it is from the manor. She lives in Crime Alley, only two blocks away from the condemned building Jason was staying in when Bruce found him (three blocks from the alley where Bruce's parents were shot outside of the theatre), and the very air smells like piss and homeless person. He imagines it would be easier to deal with if he closed the window, but to do that would be to acknowledge that he's going to be here for a while. Her apartment has two bedrooms but the second is devoid of an occupant. It has all the makings for one, with a full size bed tucked into a corner next to the radiator and a window that still hangs open not unlike the one in the living room that he came in through. There's a cheap-looking dresser tucked into the opposite corner, though there are probably more clothes strewn about on top of it than there are inside of it. The whole floor is covered in clothes, actually, and he thinks Alfred would kill him if he lived like this.

The window in Selina's room is closed, and the floor is much neater despite the thirteen cat dishes that sit at varying degrees of fullness around the bed. Despite _this_ , there is only one cat in the entire apartment, a too-skinny black creature with wide, yellow-green eyes that meows and rubs itself up against his legs the moment he enters the room like it is starved for attention (Bruce doubts this). "Isis, shoo," Selina scolds, scooping the cat up and depositing her onto the bed. Her sheets are plain white and ratty, and look like they need to be washed.

"Isis?" He raises his eyebrows at her in amusement and leans forward after a minute, scratching between the cat's ears. She begins to purr immediately, a loud sound stemming from her throat but seeming to reverberate through her entire body. Bruce has never owned a cat, nor does he particularly like them, but Isis is as personable as a cat can be and draws any and all attention to herself. He glances back up at Selina, gloved fingers still buried in her fur, and catches her rolling her eyes in what seems to be amusement. "Like the band?"

"Old man," she snorts. "Like the Egyptian goddess."

"Isis was formed in 1972. Egyptian mythology dates back to 3000 BCE," he says, voice slightly indignant.

She hums, picking Isis up to cradle her to her chest. "My bad. Not old. Just a dork, then." He wouldn't tolerate the insult from anyone else, but there's something about the way she says it that makes him think it isn't really an insult at all.

He crouches down to hide the slightest quirking of his lips from her view, more of a smirk than a genuine smile, pretending to search under her bed. He finds a thick stack of bills duct taped to the bottom of her mattress. "And what's this?" He straightens, holding it halfway between himself and her as though he's trying to show it off.

She glares, grabbing it from his hand effortlessly and once more dropping the cat onto her bed. "Rent." She hesitates a moment and then adds, "Legitimate rent. I don't give my landlord stolen goods. I'm not an idiot."

He knows that he shouldn't believe her, but he does. Selina Kyle is a criminal, but he's known her long enough to know she's not a liar. Besides, a quick glance tells him that the stack is all twenties and is _maybe_ a hundred bills. Even for an apartment in Crime Alley, two thousand seems short, and it's for that reason it's so easy to believe that she hasn't stolen the money for her rent. (After all, if she was stealing it, why wouldn't she take what she needed?)

"It looks like you were telling the truth. It's not here," he concedes, giving the room a final once over. She sits on the bed but the mattress doesn't shift under her weight, and he watches her curiously. "Where are you hiding it, Selina?" He registers exhaustion in his own voice.

"I can't tell you, Bat," she says, something strange reflected on her face. His own expression must reflect how tired he actually is, because she pats the space next to her on her bed. He hesitates for a moment, watching her and having an entire silent battle in the space of four seconds.

The bed sinks under him with a creak of protest.

He's never been on a mattress with springs before. His own beds have all been more expensive than he's kept track of, picked out by Alfred with his seemingly infinite bank account and particular hobbies in mind (vigilantism makes your back go bad faster than plain age does), and he can't remember his parents' bed very well. He hadn't crawled into their bed with nightmares for years even before they'd passed away, a happy child with more independence than he had any business possessing, but he can remember occasionally crawling into their sheets at night only weeks before their passing and asking one of his parents to read to him before he went to bed. There was never a strictly established routine. Sometimes his mother would read, sometimes his father. Sometimes in his room, sometimes in theirs. They always read, though.

He'd made it a point to read to his adoptees every night, like his parents read to him and Alfred after that. Dick liked Robin Hood and...

"What are you thinking about?" She says, her fingers gently peeling his cowl away from his face. A week ago he would have fought her. A month ago he might even have attacked her. Now, he just lays on his side on her bed, his head resting in her lap until his face is revealed and her fingers are gently brushing through his hair, damp with sweat. He never realizes how hot the suit is until he's taking it off and the sudden feeling of cool air against sweat-slicked skin grounds him until Alfred can bring him his civilian clothes.

"Jason," he admits, whispering it like a confession. "And Dick. But mostly Jason. If he were still here by this hour, we'd... it doesn't matter what we'd be doing." He trails off, closing his eyes to the feeling of her fingers massaging his scalp until she stops. Her expression is one of worry.

"It matters to you, so it matters," she says, and he wonders if that's the way she lives. If something can be important simply because it is important to her, or because it is important to anyone at all. He wonders how many important things there are in that regard. _Jason was important_ , he thinks.

So he talks. He never lifts his head from her lap, but he mumbles into her thighs about how Dick used to beg him to read _The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood_ every night at bed time, after he'd finished the day's homework and the night's patrol and was being made to go to bed despite the fact that he "wasn't tired." He always _was_ tired, but it would be very unlike Dick to admit it even now as an adult. He tells her how Dick chose Robin as his name because it was a nickname from his parents, something his mother used to call him before almost every show or his father would say like a negotiation tactic when he threw tantrums. Eventually, he opens up more, tells her how Jason wanted to be Robin because Batman works with _Robin_ , not just any kid he picks up off the street. He tells her that he should have told Jason right then and there that he wasn't just any kid, but he'd thought at the time Jason was just making a point. He never would have guessed that he'd really thought that.

He admits for the first time out loud that he would give anything to have Jason back. That he'd live like the boy did, hiding out in a crumbling old apartment building in Crime Alley with no money, stealing tires just to get by. That he might even give up his life fighting crime for good if it meant he could see Jason again. He admits for the first time out loud that sometimes (most of the time) he thinks it's his fault.

She just sits there patiently, stroking his hair with too much love for a thief and a vigilante, shushing him when he gets too bad and sitting with him in silence in the breaks between his ramblings. He isn't sure when he falls asleep, her fingers still buried in his hair.


	4. Depression

He's always been a morning person. Even when he was a child, he used to get up on his own and get ready for school before Alfred had even finished making coffee. He remembers his mother teasing him as she adjusted his tie, which he always tried and failed to do all by himself, while his father sipped at his coffee and scoffed at the morning paper. Dick was a lot like him, practically springing out of bed every morning and bouncing in his seat the whole way to Gotham Academy, but Jason used to hate waking up. The boy would sleep until noon if you'd let him.

He doesn't know what time it is when he finally wakes up.

Selina pokes him in the ribs with her toes while she bends over to gather dirty laundry and empty cat dishes alike from the floor around her bed. "Get up, Hero," she says, sounding too much like she's rolling her eyes at him. When he cracks his eyes open, she's standing at the side of the bed in nothing but underwear and a too-big t-shirt, and there's orange light cracking through the half-open blinds.

He grunts and rolls over, nuzzling his face into the pillow. All of the fluff in her pillows has been smushed to one side, giving them a lumpy quality he's not used to, but he is too tired to complain about it, burying his face in them in the attempt to block out the sunlight pouring in through her bedroom's window. She seems to disapprove of this, as he feels a sharper jab at his side and glares up at her. "I have to change the sheets."

"They're fine. Lay back down," he says, reaching for her wrist. Her hands are smaller than his, his strong fingers almost meeting as they wrap around her wrist, but he knows she is anything but delicate. While he is all thick, hard muscle, she is lanky and corded, her muscles not particularly defined but certainly there. He's been flipped over her shoulder too many times to picture her as weak, if that was a thing he ever thought. Still, she lets him grab her and pull her back into bed, sighing so that her warm breath puffs out against his chest.

"You need to get up eventually, Bat. It's almost five." He assumes that she means in the morning, but his mind and eyes both drift back to the orange glow from her window and he knows this is not how sleepy mornings in Gotham look. This is the beginning of sunset, too early for June but perfect for dark and broody Gotham City.

 _Shit_ , he thinks, though he doesn't make any move to get up. He has a board meeting in half an hour, but he thinks he would rather die than get out of bed right now. Would rather die than sit in front of all of those people for an hour, saying nothing and then signing papers that, in the grand scheme of things, mean absolutely nothing. "What are you thinking about?" Selina asks, fingers creeping up his chest toward the sensitive skin of his neck.

He grunts again, pulls her closer, and shakes his head, burying his nose in her hair. "Jason," he says, both because it is an acceptable answer and because it is constantly at least a little true. There are very few moments that he doesn't think about Jason somewhat, where he doesn't wonder what he would be doing right now if he were alive and how he would react to whatever situation Bruce is in this time. "If he were... if he weren't..." He tries to explain, but the words feel like they're choking him and so he just stops. She doesn't try to pry. Dick has never been interested in taking over the company-- likely due to his constant energy and itchy feet-- but Jason was so smart, and it isn't like Bruce will have time for an infant any time soon. He wonders if Jason would have gone to the board meetings with him.

"Stop thinking about that," she says, flattening her palm against his chest. Her hands are so cold, and he almost shivers. He suspects the icy feeling of her fingers isn't the only factor there, though. "Tell me about your company," she says, because that's as personal as she ever dares to get. He prefers it to women who meet him and immediately ask about his parents, to people who put on fake sympathy like an evening gown that they can take off and put through the wash after shooting him sad smiles for what they deem to be an acceptable amount of time. He doesn't particularly want to think about those things, though, or about Jason, so he tells her that stocks in Wayne Enterprises are up 4% and that they're thinking about buying the Daily Planet in Metropolis.

Eventually, he derails into talking about how Lucius Fox's youngest daughter will be turning six this October and he doesn't actually know how to buy birthday presents for young children. (For Dick's thirteenth birthday he got the kid a plane. He couldn't even fly a plane yet.) Selina suggest something simple-- "When I was her age I was begging for baby dolls and bikes that weren't stolen from the neighbors." -- but Bruce has never been very good at simple.

"Bruce," she says, cutting him off as he runs his hands through his hair and explains for the third time that at least he could get Tam something for her birthday in February,  _she's_ thirteen and Jason had a small crush on her. "What's really the matter?"

She's sitting up now, looking him dead in the eyes, and he swallows despite his suddenly dry mouth.

What's the matter is that he doesn't understand how children work. What's the matter is that maybe if he'd tried harder he  _could_ understand how children work and Jason wouldn't have run off looking for a real parent and he'd still be here now and--

"I don't want to go to work," he blurts, because it's the first thing that pops into his head and it's the quickest thing he can say without breathing. And it's still true. He doesn't. He hates the thought of going to this board meeting more than he's hated the thought of almost anything else, ever.

Selina blinks a moment, and then shrugs, laying back down against him. "So don't." He stares at her in fascination. He's never understood her seemingly carefree attitude before, and the more he talks to her, the less he thinks he is ever going to figure her out. He supposes he could spend the rest of his life trying to, if that was the sort of commitment he was capable of making.

"It's not that simple. I have a board meeting," he says, and he's not sure whether he's trying to tell her that or himself. He settles on both as he feels her shoulders shrug again.

"So go, then." He glares at her and she rolls onto her stomach, tangling herself into the blanket as she does. It's got the over-saturated, sickly sweet smell of sweat and he thinks he probably should have let her change the bedding. "If you want to lay here in bed all day with me, thinking, that's fine. If you want to go sit in a room with a bunch of guys in suits and talk business even though all of you are only half-listening, that's fine. It's not my job to tell you what to do, Bruce. It's just my job to lay here and sap your warmth until you figure it out by yourself."

As though to illustrate her point, she tucks her hands against his thighs, and he can only stare at her, dumbfounded. He has a million thoughts running through his head-- not the last of which being that of course he doesn't  _want_ to go sit in a room with a bunch of guys in suits, but that's his entire  _job_ \-- but he can't seem to articulate a single one.

Selina is an anomaly. He thinks so even as he gets up and starts to get dressed (there's a suit that he knows is his folded neatly on her dresser, which has been politely cleared of all its dirty laundry, and he wonders if Alfred figured out where he was and dropped it off, or if Selina broke into the Manor to pick it up for him; both seem equally likely), and he thinks so as he calls a cab and rushes to work, which is across town from Selina's apartment in Crime Alley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is super late and I'm sorry, I just got distracted with other projects and writing something this personal & emotional wasn't something I was able to do in that time.


	5. Acceptance

The patrons of Selina's building stare at him as he climbs the three flights of stairs to her apartment like they've never seen someone wearing a business suit before, and he wonders for a moment how they would react if they saw him in the  _other_ suit. From the windows with views of the sidewalk to the middle-aged single mom across the hall from Selina poking her head out the door, there are never  _not_  eyes on him.

When she opens the door, she looks miffed. "Rent's not due until tomorrow, Ka-- oh." Her mouth snaps shut when she sees him and he tries his best not to smirk. "Bruce. What are you doing here so early?"

"It's almost six," he says, corners of his lips tilting up in amusement and eyebrows raised in light challenge.  _I'd have been here sooner if your building wasn't across town from work_ , he doesn't add.

She rolls her eyes and grabs his sleeve, tugging him inside and shooting a look over his shoulder at her neighbor. "Hi, Mrs. Kaczka," she says pointedly, and then adds at him, "For you, that's early." Sending a final wave at her neighbor, she closes and locks the door behind them, her hands going to her hips. "I don't know how to explain to my neighbors how I know Bruce Wayne or why he's visiting me on a Thursday evening," she scolds.

She's wearing one of his shirts, though he doesn't know where on Earth she got it, and he can barely see the shorts she wears under it for how low it falls on her thighs. He wonders if it's some sort of chore day for her because the whole apartment smells like fresh laundry and dish soap, but he looks over her shoulder to find an episode of  _United States of Tara_ paused on the TV. The scene is surprisingly domestic, though it isn't like he thought all the villains in Gotham spent their days sitting around and thinking about how evil they are-- he doesn't even think Selina is evil, really. She just needs help.

"I choose you."

Her eyebrows furrow. "What?"

"Last week, you told me it wasn't your job to tell me what to do. That it was my job to decide if I wanted to lay in bed all day with you, thinking, or if I wanted to sit in a room with guys in suits for an hour. I can't stop sitting in rooms with guys in suits, but... I choose you, Selina."  _I choose coming here after I leave those rooms. I choose chasing you across rooftops in the middle of the night because realistically, you were never going to stop being a criminal for anyone. Just this one time, I choose to let myself be happy_.

She looks positively stunned. Her mouth hangs open like her words are caught in it and she's trying to evict them, but can't quite find the force in her and so she just stands across from him in her living room, mouth agape. Finally, after a long minute, she snaps it shut just like when they were at the door and strides closer, wrapping her arms around his neck and dragging him down into a kiss as though he has stolen her voice and she is trying to reclaim it. His hands quickly find her hips, pulling her against him and kissing her until she's forced to pull back for air.

She stares at him with wide green eyes, scanning over his face for something. "Okay," she breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is short, but I didn't think the ending for this fic needed to be super long so much as satisfying. I was definitely satisfied. Thanks for sticking with this story, and for all of your supportive words, you guys!

**Author's Note:**

> Three weeks ago my grandmother's husband lost his two year battle with lung cancer, and I just recently hit the Acceptance stage of grief after going through the whole process for years. While I expected my step-grandfather's death and took it in stride as I'd had a while to cope with it, two days ago and not quite three weeks later I lost my grandfather unexpectedly. He was never in perfect health, but he wasn't unwell when I'd left the house on Tuesday afternoon to go visit my family for my second eldest uncle's birthday. When I came home on Thursday afternoon, I found my grandfather dead on the floor. While I suppose that this chapter isn't exactly _denial_ , this story about the five stages of grief is very personal for me and I hope that the feeling of loss is properly conveyed.


End file.
